Although I used to work in Rockford and live in the suburbs, the revival of the Blackhawk seems a non-starter. As I recall the plan (?), the route on the CN (old IC) won't serve O'Hare or any suburbs east of Elgin (maybe Elmhurst?). Between Elgin and Rockford, there is nothing. West of Rockford, there is only Galena as a traffic draw. A rail line to nowhere. Better to extend the commuter service on the UP (old CNW) beyond Elburn to Dekalb (Northern Illinois University).
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
MaglevI am waiting to hear more about why Boston to Montreal is on the HSR map, and there is a battle in Illinois over the Chicago to Dubuque routing. It seems everyone wants rail service! Let's build a national network!
I am waiting to hear more about why Boston to Montreal is on the HSR map, and there is a battle in Illinois over the Chicago to Dubuque routing. It seems everyone wants rail service! Let's build a national network!
I don't think the various higher-density regional intercity rail passenger corridors can be characterized as a national network.
As for Dubuque, I have a suspicion that a faction (railfans?) wanted to restore the "Blackhawk" because that was the way it was. Times and circumstances have changed; and the emerging plan is for the MDW-UP-CN route through Big Timber (Elgin, IL) that also serves the desire for a commuter service from Rockford and much earlier schedules to reach jobs in the northwest suburbs and O'Hare. The route could serve the on-line Illinois Rail Museum, and maybe share the parking lot.
Maglev:
It might help to include in your display a composite timetable showing services in the NW or at least Seattle in 1960.
blue streak 1Harvey: I often wondered about the acceleration/ decel problem. At one time I wondered about a HHP class dual mode locomotive being under CAT for about 2 miles each side of a station for an 8000HP acceleration then the diesel engine taking over at 4000hp to maintain the trains speed. Then regenerative braking into power grid for stopping at next station.I was more thinking along a 110MPH ROW. Any thoughts?
Harvey: I often wondered about the acceleration/ decel problem. At one time I wondered about a HHP class dual mode locomotive being under CAT for about 2 miles each side of a station for an 8000HP acceleration then the diesel engine taking over at 4000hp to maintain the trains speed. Then regenerative braking into power grid for stopping at next station.I was more thinking along a 110MPH ROW. Any thoughts?
Refresh my memory: is the HHP a gas turbine-electric locomotive?
First, only 4,000 hp will get a 6-car train up to 110 mph quite nicely - you don't need to be pinned back in your seat. While the time to accelerate is halved with 8,000 hp, the other half of the time at cruise speed results in a net increase in energy consumption and saves only a fraction of a minute.
Given that locomotive overhead power collection and modification for traction is about a wash with batteries, the big difference is the cost of the ~8 miles of catenary and substation at each station and control point where a train is likely to be held up.
Interpreting some earlier calculations, around 8,000 hp is needed to get a 6-car train with two locomotives at each end (streamlined noses, skirts & full diaphragms) up to 150 mph in under 10 miles; and this is with reaching 110 mph in just ~2.5 miles. Part of this is due to the train covering a lot more distance at higher speeds while accelerating. The time saved at 150 mph is more significant and may warrant the higher energy consumption. The extended distance for acceleration would impact the length of catenary to the point that a dual power option also might be considered to avoid changing locomotives while reducing oil-based energy consumption for the majority of the service. It seems that a 220 mph service would offer greater benefits for comparatively little additional cost with perhaps rotating and prioritized 150 mph incremental/implementation phases.
MHSRA is looking for donors to pay for a study of ridership and of service benefits and costs, especially for energy, emissions, capital, and operating by passenger, hopefully to build documentation and support for 220 mph service. The most recent plan MHSRA plan calls for using the CN through Champaign for a 220 mph Chicago - Saint Louis Corridor while first improving and maintaining 110 mph service via Bloomington-Normal. One fly in the ointment is the UP decision to build an intermodal terminal, Global 4, south of Joliet for Texas, Gulf Coast, and Mexico traffic lanes, most likely through Thebes and East Saint Louis and discussed in a parallel thread. Faster trains to St Louis would shorten transit times to Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas, making rail travel more attractive and building ridership. Using the CN would facilitate additional high speed services between Chicago and Paducah, Nashville, and Memphis. If you know anyone, ask them to contact the MHSRA.
The lighter weight of a comparably efficient recuperated gas turbine (discussed in an earlier thread) offsets the added weight of a hybrid locomotive's batteries and should allow a reduction in axle load for 150 mph services. I have asked before, but have yet to hear, why the current version of the X-2000 abandoned the elastomeric journal "springs" that reduced the unsprung mass and wheel-rail impact. While the benefits, including oil independence, are not as great as for electrification and 220 mph service, a significant reduction in implementation cost and improvement in operating flexibility and interoperability are achieved.
Sorry, I didn't mean to criticize advocacy groups. As punishment, I'll spend a day at Saturday Market promoting a national rail network. One idea is to take three maps for display: passenger routes in @1960; Amtrak routes (past and present); and proposed HSR corridors.
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." Daniel Burnham
HarveyK400 henry6 ...3) Shovel ready rail project: New York/North Jersey to Scranton, PA and on to BInghamton, Elmira, and Buffalo, NY! Seems like a reasonable route in the Illinois mode. Just curious, did Amtrak do a study and the State is ready to fund it as is the case in Illinois? $150M for Dubuque, Moline (Iowa City), and other improvements are on our Governor's desk as I write. Even this is not immediately shovel-ready.
henry6 ...3) Shovel ready rail project: New York/North Jersey to Scranton, PA and on to BInghamton, Elmira, and Buffalo, NY!
...3) Shovel ready rail project: New York/North Jersey to Scranton, PA and on to BInghamton, Elmira, and Buffalo, NY!
Seems like a reasonable route in the Illinois mode. Just curious, did Amtrak do a study and the State is ready to fund it as is the case in Illinois? $150M for Dubuque, Moline (Iowa City), and other improvements are on our Governor's desk as I write. Even this is not immediately shovel-ready.
The Amtrak study is supposedly done...they were doing it this past Spring...so answers should be up by Fall...but that's just west of Scranton...all east of Scranton is in "go" mode.
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HarveyK400My concern then and now is whether non-electrified trains can attain 150 mph in a reasonable distance between restrictions and stops. This is the limit for shared track despite divergent freight and passenger needs above 90 mph; and it doesn't make sense to go to the expense of full grade separation for anything less. Without non-electrified or dual-powered traction for higher performance trains, developing a viable high-volume grade-separated trunk line with more conventional-speed (110 mph) non-electrified lower volume branches may be impractical.
henry6...3) Shovel ready rail project: New York/North Jersey to Scranton, PA and on to BInghamton, Elmira, and Buffalo, NY!
1) We have not had 40 years experience in operating long distance trains, we've had 40 years of Amtrak which only in certain circumstances has been a rail passenger service but more often just an operator of passenger trains....
2) Another point on energey efficiencies and changes: track and roadbed dynamics have changed in many ways...welded rail is one place to start....
3) Shovel ready rail project: New York/North Jersey to Scranton, PA and on to BInghamton, Elmira, and Buffalo, NY!
4) Setting up tables at malls and special events to pitch train service is not a bad idea...especially when the media is not equipped to deal with the subject and most politicians scanlty tip a polite ear tot he subjects...
5) Especially don't try to sell the old choo choo bit, today's trains are not father's nor grandfather's six wheel troop sleeper schlepping cross the good ol' You Ess of AAY! Traffic patterns, equipment, and needs are so, so, so different than way back when!
oltmannd...On the horizon, there's optimized train handling which appears to be worth another 10% and hybrid locomotives which will recycle braking energy for another big chunk of change. And that's just off the top of my head.
And that's just off the top of my head.
I'm thinking a 3,300 hp diesel or gas turbine-battery hybrid, recharging during reduced power demands as well as regenerative braking, might provide 4,400 hp for acceleration with a 25% reduction in fuel consumption.
oltmannd Advocates cannot afford to be disilluisioned, nor stuck in the past, nor "Don Quixote". They need to be nimble, forward thinking and politically astute. They need to be ready to push where the oppositon is the weakest and the support is the greatest. Right now, that means focusing like a laser beam on the types of services targeted by the $8B and making sure it's spent to best effect. Where states and host RRs are the most accomodating. Where the benefits will generate the best possible perceived value by the most people. Jim McClelland opined that the LD trains aren't going anywhere, but that they were "irrelevant". I believe that is the truth. We have 40 years of history that confirm that truth. It's a waste of time and energy for the advocacy groups to pay ANY attention at all to the LD trains. Don't say they are bad and should go away - 'cause they're not. Don't say they are good and we need more LD routes- 'cause that ain't happening either. Just ignore them - completely. There's nothing to be gained either way. If the $8B gets spent on stupid things like a few trains a day from Chicago to Iowa or Boston to Montreal or restoration of the Sunset to Orlando, then we are done. There will be no more new money for passenger trains for a LONG time. Pick your battles pragmatically.
Advocates cannot afford to be disilluisioned, nor stuck in the past, nor "Don Quixote". They need to be nimble, forward thinking and politically astute.
They need to be ready to push where the oppositon is the weakest and the support is the greatest. Right now, that means focusing like a laser beam on the types of services targeted by the $8B and making sure it's spent to best effect. Where states and host RRs are the most accomodating. Where the benefits will generate the best possible perceived value by the most people.
Jim McClelland opined that the LD trains aren't going anywhere, but that they were "irrelevant". I believe that is the truth. We have 40 years of history that confirm that truth. It's a waste of time and energy for the advocacy groups to pay ANY attention at all to the LD trains. Don't say they are bad and should go away - 'cause they're not. Don't say they are good and we need more LD routes- 'cause that ain't happening either. Just ignore them - completely. There's nothing to be gained either way.
If the $8B gets spent on stupid things like a few trains a day from Chicago to Iowa or Boston to Montreal or restoration of the Sunset to Orlando, then we are done. There will be no more new money for passenger trains for a LONG time.
Pick your battles pragmatically.
Long-distance trains are relevant inasmuch as they are a piece of the same pie and share infrastructure with corridor and regional (commuter rail) services. I do agree that other needs supersede long-distance with limited resources and best serve the niche where rail passenger service can be more effective and beneficial.
Amtrak got into trouble inheriting long-distance trains and a network. What else could they do with those assets? Now we face a similar dilemma with Superliner cars that could be repaired and returned to service. What services should they go to; and how should they be configured?
I take issue on proposed Chicago - Iowa services being stupid; or by extension, the existing trains to Quincy and Carbondale, Illinois. The latter do quite well and serve needs without ending in a Saint Louis. Michigan trains from Port Huron and Grand Rapids serve similar markets. Overall, 83% of Illinois' population will be in a county with intercity rail passenger service, notwithstanding that Cook County (Chicago) comprises 41% of the total.
The $8B is a stiimulus to get the ball rolling; implying a desire for an expanded and ongoing program to continue improving services. Adding new routes augment and feed potential high speed corridors or pave the way for further improvements.
I got good results in the past using a composite of Davis and other sources.
For one, I began using a conservative A=1.1 lbs/ton based on a KCS study in 1930 referenced by William Hay. Rolling resistence, including the effective rolling up hill from bending of the rail was as much as 1.5 lbs/ton; but varried as much as 0.4 lbs/ton with rail sections varying from 84 lbs/yd to 150 lbs/yd with cars of the same weight. Furthermore, resistance increased from an unspecified fraction of a pound (Hay) for empty cars; and passenger equipment was not [tested]. Finally, the track modulus including the rail varies greatly, as much as ten times as for the rail by itself, with the ballast and subgrade formation. 1.3 lbs/ton significantly over-represents modern track with at least 12" of well-drained granite ballast under the ties. (PRR studies showed that tie load on the ballast evened out at about 22" at 80 tons/axle for Ts & Qs which begins to explain the pumping phenominon and resulting degradation.)
Hay further recommends Totten's factors for drag, especially above 60 mph. Train length and circumference is used as a whole rather than just the cross-section area=C with adjustments for streamlining factors. A P42 and NPCU at either end could be treated as blunt domes. The French tests refined Totten's approach for the TGV. It's moot to me that you used C=0.41 rather than C=0.30 for passenger cars and locomotives recommended by Davis.
This gets you within a pew of where you want to be on either the pulpit or lecturn side of the church; or more like getting a point for the horseshoe being within its width from the stake. We're talking about fractions of a minute without even considering diesel outputs that can vary both by 10% of the nominal rating and with outdoor temperature. I fully agree that these are approximations at best; but I think we're a lot closer than a factor of two.
I'm ill-equipped and not about to spend a few days on this. Paul Milenkovic was generous in calculating acceleration for a P42 with six Horizon coaches; and, by interpolation, comes up attaining 110 in about 3.8 minutes and 4.8 miles. Using Paul's figures, you may be right. Multiplying the total train resistance (2,120+1,470=3,590 lbs) at 74.8 mph by five with 30 heavier and taller cars is near the cusp with an estimated 21,559 lbs tractive effort.
Going back, I once calculated that a train composed of an F40 and 5 Superliners had 4,549 lbs total resistance at 75 mph (which was attained in 5.03 minutes and 4.37 miles with 1,940 hp for traction and hep). Surprising to me, a P42 seems capable of reaching at least 70 mph with 30 Superliners if it doesn't run out of track first.
My concern then and now is whether non-electrified trains can attain 150 mph in a reasonable distance between restrictions and stops. This is the limit for shared track despite divergent freight and passenger needs above 90 mph; and it doesn't make sense to go to the expense of full grade separation for anything less. Without non-electrified or dual-powered traction for higher performance trains, developing a viable high-volume grade-separated trunk line with more conventional-speed (110 mph) non-electrified lower volume branches may be impractical.
I didn't get into the fuel consumption or emissions for such speeds or other social, economic, and transportation benefits; but this has to be part of an honest discussion.
If passenger operations subject to delays from boarding and conflicting moves were not enough wild cards, consider weather-related delays such as restictions for extreme heat and cold, servere weather such as tornados, washouts from floods, water over the tracks, and water-soaked and weakened roadbeds.
Paul Milenkovic Do you seriously want to advance the cause of passenger rail in the U.S. by setting up tables at model train shows, farmer's markets, and civic gatherings the way I do and put up banners and hand out literature saying that your objective is to tax people out of their cars on account of Global Warming, Peak Oil, the Farmland Crisis, and General Overreliance on the Automobile and substitute trains so people can move about at 10 percent of the level they do now, say at the level accessible to the average person today in China? I have a colleague in my local advocacy group who participates in the literature tables who advocates just that, but only privately within our board meetings but is not ready to make that the emphasis of our public outreach.
Do you seriously want to advance the cause of passenger rail in the U.S. by setting up tables at model train shows, farmer's markets, and civic gatherings the way I do and put up banners and hand out literature saying that your objective is to tax people out of their cars on account of Global Warming, Peak Oil, the Farmland Crisis, and General Overreliance on the Automobile and substitute trains so people can move about at 10 percent of the level they do now, say at the level accessible to the average person today in China? I have a colleague in my local advocacy group who participates in the literature tables who advocates just that, but only privately within our board meetings but is not ready to make that the emphasis of our public outreach.
Bingo. (again)
If you were to pitch trains to people so that "you can get rid of your car", most people would react, "but I LIKE my car."
And, if you make a car that gets twice the gas mileage, the reaction would be "Cool! Now I can afford to take twice as many trips!" or "Great! Now I can sell my house 25 miles from work and buy that acre of land 50 miles from work."
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Maglev I started posting here because I believe in passenger trains, and have gotten the impression that advocay groups are so disillusioned that they can barely support maintenance of the current Amtrak system.
Maglev"shovel ready" (ie, 50-year overdue) nationwide rail projects.
Name one.
The statement that the Highway Fund is bankrupt was from my Senator, Patty Murray, chair of the Senate Transportation Appropriations Committee. If there is possibility of improving train efficiency and capacity, then that is all the more reason why a national rail network needs to tbe preserved.
I am not alone in this view. Don Phillips in August Trains mentions his frustrations with continued decline of Amtrak. I started posting here because I believe in passenger trains, and have gotten the impression that advocay groups are so disillusioned that they can barely support maintenance of the current Amtrak system.
My local Ferry Advisory Council is disillusioned, but they are a quasi-official body. They are volunteers who try to interface between the community and government. They celebrate small victories such as an intermodal connection from ferry to bus to train (from selected islands, southbound train only).
Advocates need to "think nationally, and act locally." But the prevailing attitude is to get as much stimulus money as possible for local roads, and forget about even "shovel ready" (ie, 50-year overdue) nationwide rail projects. What is wrong with this? Go back to the beginning of my post--the Highway Trust Fund is bankrupt!
HarveyK400None of the tedious hand or programmed computer calculations I've made in the past with Davis formulas would suggest a P42 could get 30 Superliners up to 75 mph
Which won't be tedious. Davis says tractive resistance (in pounds) at speed V (in miles/hour) is A + BV + CV^2, where
A = 1.3 times total tons, plus 29 times total axles
B = 0.03 times total tons
C = 0.041 times number of cars (plus maybe 0.3 for the P42 if you want to include it)
(Edit: I blew the calculation-- according to Davis, 67-68 mph would be a better guess for a P42 with 30 Superliners, assuming no HEP.)
HarveyK400...or that the resulting calculations are too inaccurate, inadequate, and unreliable.
Such improvements are no longer possible; and for now the challenge is solving the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund. We need to keep options open, including Amtrak.
OK, I am missing something here. Bankrupt Highway Trust Fund? What bankrupt Highway Trust Fund -- I thought that and everything else is getting ARRA money.
Again, suppose the Highway Trust Fund has a significant shortfall from gas tax money and it needs general revenue. We need to consider Amtrak as an option to that problem? Wake me up when the Highway Trust Fund General Revenue contribution reaches 20+ cents/passenger mile.
I guess I still consider myself a passenger train advocate, but the advocacy community is grasping at straws with all manner of weak arguments in support of trains, and I begin to wonder about things. WisARP sends out its newsletter proclaiming that the gas price crisis resulted in a 5 percent decline in automobile trip miles. Yeah, what are trains supposed to do about that? If you are really concerned that people taking a few less trips constitutes some crisis of mobility that important work is not getting done, and that fewer vacations are taken, bankrupting the hospitality industry, making up that 5 percent with trains would require a 50 billion dollar a year expenditure based on the formulas of the Vision Report. That's right, pretty much the entire Federal Highway Budget and more, all taken from general revenue. That's pretty much what they do in Europe, by the way. Try selling that idea to people on these shores.
"trains that might go 65 mph. Wow, we've really lowered our standards!"
Lowered standards? We have lowered auto speeds (and then raised them in places) in pursuit of energy efficiency and safety. Planes fly somewhat slower than at the start of the jet age for saving fuel. They don't fly the Concorde Supersonic anymore. What is so magical about one speed or some other speed, provided one serves a need at a reasonable cost? Do commuter trains need to go 300 KPH? Does the Hiawatha train or Pacific Surfliner need that kind of speed. Our new Amtrak CEO spoke of moderate speed increases on a multiplicity of corridors as a worthwhile near-term goal, and now we are back to this "national shame" argument again?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Maglevwhich improved efficiency from 181 in 1923 to 130 in 1936 (pounds of coal per one thousand gross ton miles). Such improvements are no longer possible;
Sure they are. There's been at least a 20% improvement in diesel locomotive efficiency since 1980 through a whole array of engineering and technical improvments. On top of that add, elimination of stretch braking, reduction in HP/ton and AutoStart to eliminate most idling. That's another huge chunk.
On the horizon, there's optimized train handling which appears to be worth another 10% and hybrid locomotives which will recycle braking energy for another big chunk of change.
Paul--
I distinctly do not want to become one of those people who sets up tables at the Saturday market, whose only followers are those reading my bumper stickers. Locally, we are barely able to keep the ferries running; the Cascade rail corridor is at least alive but not bustling. Light rail is finally returning to Seattle.
A survey in my last Costco flyer solicits opinions on trains that might go 65 mph. Wow, we've really lowered our standards! My great grandfather worked for the L & N, which improved efficiency from 181 in 1923 to 130 in 1936 (pounds of coal per one thousand gross ton miles). Such improvements are no longer possible; and for now the challenge is solving the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund. We need to keep options open, including Amtrak.
Here is an example of an efficiency buster: on a 2006 Northbound Coast Starlight, we were more or less on time at Klamath Falls; but were delayed two hours while the replacement engineer got his required time off duty. Everyone (but not the HEP) cooled their heels while he sipped his coffee. A bus carried away the Empire Builder passengers. But if there were a bigger system with more trains and crews, or freight engineers available, such inefficiency might be avoided.
Maglev Paul, if you had any idea how much NASA struggles to get their rovers moving a few feet, you would not use Martian comparisons! http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12101 The efficiency of the highway itself must be considered also. Just look at the picture on page 29 of July Trains (a ten-lane highway next to a BART train). There must be something wrong with the way we evaluate efficiency. Pope Benedict refers to this in his new encyclical, Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth). "..Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence..." The encyclical seems rather thin on environmental science, and the news report I read from Washington Post didn't mention railroads at all. But the following is how I feel about our over-reliance on automobiles: "...the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side..." http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2009/07/pope_benedict_on_economic_justice.html?hpid=talkbox1
Paul, if you had any idea how much NASA struggles to get their rovers moving a few feet, you would not use Martian comparisons!
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12101
The efficiency of the highway itself must be considered also. Just look at the picture on page 29 of July Trains (a ten-lane highway next to a BART train).
There must be something wrong with the way we evaluate efficiency. Pope Benedict refers to this in his new encyclical, Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth). "..Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence..."
The encyclical seems rather thin on environmental science, and the news report I read from Washington Post didn't mention railroads at all. But the following is how I feel about our over-reliance on automobiles:
"...the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side..."
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2009/07/pope_benedict_on_economic_justice.html?hpid=talkbox1
Yes, the BART line parallels 10 free lanes. What this says is that we should concentrate resources on transit and commuter trains and short corridor trains rather than the Sunset Limited.
I am thoroughly familiar with Bishop Ratzinger's exortation to consume fewer resources. Have you looked yet at David Lawyer's Web site? They are not working to cross purposes. The problem is not overreliance on the automobile. The problem is that the automobile is so flexible and convenient that it permits us to be overreliant on moving about and going different places. Back in the Golden Age of passenger trains and interurbans, people just didn't get out much. You are never going to provide passenger miles with rail on the scale we do in the U.S. with automobiles. Japan doesn't do it, Europe doesn't do it, China and Russia don't do it, the U.S. never came close to doing it "back in the day."
Rail may be part of the pattern of allowing people to return to higher density living arrangements, that in combination with social restrictions on driving, perhaps gasoline taxes well beyond the European level, restrictions on parking, taxes on vehicle ownership, London-style congestion tax zones, could effect the sort of rollback on automobile use that the likes of James Howard Kunstler is agitating for and maybe the Most Reverend Joseph Ratzinger is hinting at.
As Judeo-Christian-Islamic ethics have entered into the discussion, last I heard, no one has repealed the Commandment against "bearing false witness", which I believe is the Eighth Commandment according to the Roman Catholic numbering. Claiming that a train that operates at 187 MPH has an order-of-magnitude less energy-consumption environmental impact than an intercity bus is a case of bearing false witness. Passenger train advocacy would be more successful if we avoided fantasy claims easily shot down by critics and we carefully followed the Eighth Commandment.
HarveyK400 neither the physics or Amtrak trains have changed beyond the scope of past work
Well, maybe sorta kinda. The Davis equation certainly gets you to church, but it probably doesn't get you in the right pew.
What has changed is the understanding of vehicular aerodynamics - at least on the automotive side. And, the cross section and placement of underbody equipment on passenger trains has changed, too.
It would be useful to what the penalty for mixing Horizon and Amfleet equipment, for example. Is it 5% at 100 mph? That would be 5% you could go get almost for free - don't mix. How about some sheetmetal fairing on the underbody? How about full width diaphragms? A few more percentage points for a very small investment, perhaps? Or, even some small stuff - how about those Acela roof humps? Could they be improved?
None of the tedious hand or programmed computer calculations I've made in the past with Davis formulas would suggest a P42 could get 30 Superliners up to 75 mph; or that the resulting calculations are too inaccurate, inadequate, and unreliable. I might believe 20 superliners. Subtracting the power for auxiliaries, an F40 poops out after 75 mph with 11 loaded PS gallery suburban cars according to my calculations, taking 9 miles to accelerate to that speed and 16 miles to attain 80 mph on the dead level. This coincides with my experience as a commuter and is little better than an E8. A P42 has almost twice the horsepower available for traction as the F40.
We don't need to duplicate tests just because they were done a long time ago - neither the physics or Amtrak trains have changed beyond the scope of past work. More recent tests reported by Peters were for high speed trains, in this case the TGV and the effects of certain components.
The anecdotal information for Amtrak #4 is problematic with the changing numbers of locomotives and cars.
schlimm Pretty impressive!! Of course, some will claim that cannot work in the US.
Pretty impressive!! Of course, some will claim that cannot work in the US.
Yes, I am that someone who will claim that it cannot work in the U.S.. It cannot work in France either, or in Germany, UK, Italy, Croatia, Taiwan, China, Korea, or any such place. I think it can be made to work on the surface of the planet Mars.
The claim is for 2.2 gm CO2/passenger-km (some calculation on the bus and airplane figures will demonstrate the claim is actually in CO2/seat-km, your carbon footprint will vary depending on the "load factor" of the train). Using power generated by Diesel fuel combustion as a reference, a gallon of Diesel burns to 10,000 gm CO2. The train has 430 seats. Thus the train runs at a Diesel fuel equivalent of 6.6 MPG (yes, the entire 11-car articulated train) at its rated speed of 300 kph (187 MPH). The train is using energy (at cruising speed) in the equivalent of 28 gallons/hour, 198 pounds of fuel/hour, assuming .4 lb Diesel/hp-hr, the drag of the train is thus 500 lb.
On Earth, my estimate of the rolling resistance of the train is about 1000 lb, assuming a lightweight train. In the countries listed, well outside the Tibetan Plateau, there is considerable air drag to be added, especially at 300 KPH, even for a highly streamlined train. Owing to the lighter gravity on Mars and the very thin atmosphere, my estimate is that the train would require 500 lb of tractive effort at 300 KPH and would meet the published specification.
Yes, the engineers in Europe are doing advanced work on railroads. But Europe also has, how do you say, "marketing managers", "writers of glossy brochures", "sales people", and other occupations of people who wear "suits" as we have in the U.S., and sometimes the technical figures from the Engineering Department get lost and extravagant claims get made.
HarveyK400The problem is not calculating drag. That has been tested and factored for various streamlining elements by Davis and others; and is still relevant today for Amtrak.
Davis says a P42 can pull 30 Superliners at 75 mph on the level. Maybe it can, but we wouldn't be astonished if it fell short. (Or did better.)
Here's one data point on fuel burn: around 1977 Amtrak #4 burned 7310 gallons on one run LA to Chicago. The usual three SDP40Fs LA to La Junta, the usual two east from there; 14 cars LA to KC, 12 east from there.
Why does all this matter when we are living in the Passenger Railway Stone Age in America?
"In detail, the primary advantages of the new Alstom AGV train regard all aspects of performance: weight/power ratio, onboard space and comfort, energy consumption, safety and maintenance."
http://www.ntvspa.it/en/nuovo-trasporto-viaggiatori/37/3/high-speed-train-agv-italy-description
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